PETA: Breast is Best

Will PETA never come to the end of their lunacy? I have been posting about the various ways in which PETA has used sexism to sell their message against cruelty to animals. They have continually sexualized women, see here, here, andhere. In their latest assault they have suggested that Ben & Jerrys switch from cows milk to breast milk. It seems that they are concerned about the living conditions, and the cruelty that dairy cows undergo to provide milk for our population. The solution is not to speak to people and get them to boycott dairy products….oh no…we should hook women up to machines, and get them to pump the milk that we need.

Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup… Because male calves can’t produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can’t even turn around.

I truly understand why there is a need to raise attention to this issue. No animal should be forced to endure inhumane conditions to sustain a human desire. What I find equally galling, is that PETA continually has no issue privileging animals over women. Social change on the backs of women is not social change, it is just reaffirming a social hierarchy wherein women are already marginalized and exploited.

The breast is best! Won’t you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow’s milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

The solution for animal cruelty is for women to turn into dairy cows for the nation. Of course unlike animals, using women for their milk would not be in the least bit exploitative? Women were born to lactate, so why not just use us to make sure everyone gets their daily dose of calcium.

Cows are suffering so let us not take a moment to consider that if this insanity was actually instituted, that it would be the poor women that would be turned into lactating slaves. I pity the dairy cow, but I pity more the woman that would reduced to this state.

Whether it is to titillate the palate of the rich, or to end the suffering of dairy cows, it is not acceptable to exploit women in this fashion. This is literally eating the other. The idea that womens bodies can be and should be consumed in this fashion creates us as slaves to biology, and further marginalizes women that subsist in poverty.

The more I see of PETA, the more disgusted I become. There is no level that they are unwilling to sink to. While their goals may be laudable, they are lost behind the misogyny that is used to transmit the message. I may believe in the value of an animal, but I have a far deeper commitment to women.